Photo by Aila Boyd
By Aila Boyd
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.com
Botetourt Commonwealth’s Attorney John Alexander attended the January meeting of the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors last Tuesday to discuss the possibility of establishing a drug treatment court program in the county.
“I’ve been a prosecutor for 24 years. The job of a prosecutor is to prosecute criminal cases, but the overall goal of a prosecutor is to enhance public safety,” Alexander said.
He explained that in the 24 years that he’s spent prosecuting drug cases in Roanoke and Botetourt Counties, he’s become convinced that offering drug offenders intensive drug abuse recovery treatment enhances public safety. Because of that conviction, one of his goals since becoming Botetourt’s Commonwealth’s Attorney in February of 2018 has been to launch a drug treatment court program in the county.
“I recognize that the term gets thrown around a lot and people don’t know what a drug treatment court is,” he said. “A drug court is a drug treatment docket. Drug offenders are allowed to be placed in an alternative process. They’re put into a track for an intensive drug treatment.”
He said that the drug treatment court programs require accountability for drug offenders through frequent court sessions, peer accountability with fellow drug court participants, and the achievement of specific meaningful goals. Probation officer contact and frequent drug testing is also required.
Participants are also required to work, perform community service, and “obtain the tools that they need in order to get clean and stay clean.”
The typical time that a participant spends in a drug treatment court program is a year to two years.
Alexander caution that the program is not for violent offenders. “Public safety is first, so there are strict eligibility requirements for folks entering the program,” he said. “It’s not a way to avoid accountability. Drug court is about accountability for drug offenders, but it’s about accountability that allows them to access treatment versus incarceration.”
He added that it doesn’t always work.
The program involves commitments from judges, commonwealth’s attorneys, defense counsels, probation officers, and treatment providers.
Currently in Virginia there are 39 adult drug court treatment programs. Of the 39 programs, Alexander said, there are probably 39 different models. When he first started inquiring about drug courts, Alexander explained, he was naïve in the fact that he thought there was a template for how to establish one.
In moving forward with Alexander’s goal, a local advisory committee has been established for the drug court. The advisory committee is a requirement for drug courts to be recognized by the state. Additionally, Alexander said that he’s in the process of acquiring data that will be needed for the application to establish the court. Resources that could be used to treat drug offenders have also been identified.
Once everything has been lined up, Alexander will then submit an application to the Office of the Executive Secretary, which funds the drug courts.
Alexander added that he wasn’t asking the members of the Board of Supervisors for money, but that he might do so at a later date.
Before receiving grant funding from the state, he explained, a pilot program will likely have to be established in order to demonstrate that Botetourt has the ability to carry out the program.
The Office of the Executive Secretary has estimated that each successful program participant has saved Virginia $19,000 in costs that would have otherwise gone towards incarceration, recidivism, arrests, and additional probation hours.
“Instead of housing people at enormous expense daily, we are offering them the tools so that they don’t reoffend. We’re putting them back in the community where they can support their families,” he said.
